My insecurities often center around feeling second best; the sense of being chosen last on a dodgeball team; the lone player still sitting on the bench after everyone runs onto the field. Growing up, I never really connected my self-doubt to the replacement of my dead brother in our family’s blueprint, as I became baby number two. While the current research on the phenomena of replacement children helps me to intellectually acknowledge my challenges, it does little to ease my familiar, life-long sensitivity to runner-up status; to filling shoes that never quite fit.

The one main area, though, where I feel first is in my relationship with my husband. Even after 47 years, Paul anticipates my needs and helps me in countless, unselfish ways. He willingly offers to do errands for me—chores, as he puts it, making me feel as if, instead of city life, we live on a farm and I have told him to milk the cows and buck hay. Even this he would gladly do for me. He listens to me even more........

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